Ingmar Bergman's 1955 film KVINNODRÖM ("Women's Dreams", released in the English-speaking world as simply "Dreams") has two interwoven plots that each involve a woman coming face to face with her aspirations to love and romance and being disappointed. Susanne (Eva Dahlbeck) runs an agency for fashion models in Stockholm, but she is distracted from work by an obsession with a married man (played by Ulf Palme) whose mistress she once was. Though the affair has been cut off, Susanne continues to stalk him. Meanwhile, one her models, Doris (Harriet Andersson) is seduced by a rich old man (Gunnar Björnstrand) who identifies her love of expensive clothes and jewelry as her weak spot.
The 1950s were anni mirabili for Ingmar Bergman, when he was increasingly cementing a reputation as one of the finest filmmakers in the world. Though this 1955 effort came out right in the middle of such legendary achievements as "Summer with Monika", "Sawdust and Tinsel", and "The Seventh Seal", it has never been considered one of Bergman's better films, and there hasn't even been much of a push to recognize it as a lost masterpiece like some other lesser-known works of this period. The plot revisits already well-worth themes. Plus, I was very underwhelmed by the initial minutes of the film, which sinks into pure melodrama at one point as Susanne agonizes on a train and considers suicide. The film is shot in a dry, realistic style and lacks the dazzling effects that Bergman had already begun to employ.
However, the film is certainly worthwhile for established fans of Bergman through the performances he evokes from the actors. Dahlbeck, who was considered quite a great talent and beauty in her day, leaves me cold, but Ulf Palme elicits simultaneous sympathy and disgust as the henpecked husband that Sussane has an affair with. Inga Landgré's small but climactic part as the man's wife thrills with her composed delivery of devastating lines. The real stars of the film, however, are Andersson and Björnstrand. Harriet Andersson was a sex bomb, and often played roles that capitalized on that, but here her ditzy Doris is a full-fledged character of her own, different from Andersson's appearances in other Bergman films. She also knows how to drive so much of the interpersonal action with her deft facial expressions alone. Björnstrand is admirable for the charm and grace he shows as the old seducer, and with poise he gradually shows the cracks in the façade as their fling might not have been a good idea after all.
